


Keep Breathing

by kittydesade



Category: Blade Runner (1982)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:58:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade





	Keep Breathing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ade/gifts).



"I don't like this."

Leon pouted. Roy pouted, too, but it was more dignified an expression, handsome, even. At least she thought so, looking up at the both of them beneath her now-copper locks as she brushed the last flecks of glitter and dye off her shoulders.

"They want us to be invisible. They think we'll hide. So I won't hide. I'll stand out." Her chin lifted.

"You're challenging them, and you'll lose." Roy stepped close to her, tall and proud, giving her his look of how he knew better than her, he was strong and smart and their leader but he loved her best of all. She thought he did, at least.

Pris looked up from her dolls and glared at her, one leg uncurling from the chair she was folded into. Zhora ignored her.

"I can challenge them where and how I want," she addressed Roy instead, pulling her under-clothes on and then the wrap over that. "They're soft now. There hasn't been an escape like ours in years, they don't know what they're doing anymore. The best of them are all retired or too old."

Roy narrowed his eyes at her, pretty lips pursed. "I still don't like this." But that expression meant he would stop objecting, and Zhora stalked triumphantly over to where her coat and duffel bag were, heels thudding against the linoleum tile floor. She felt both men's eyes on her shimmering back. Leon was a drooler. Roy just admired and, if he decided he wanted, he took. She liked that about him. It made her think she could do the same, always.

"You don't have to like it. You know where I'll be."

 

Zhora waited for her turn to audition, still but impatient. These girls were crap. Everyone knew they were crap, the bartender, the manager, the emcee. Everyone got a fair shake, though. She liked that about this place, everyone equal. Like on Roy's team.

Even if she wanted to give Pris a shake, but that was just because the girl had the annoying habit of clinging to Roy like magnetic space junk.

Finally it was her turn. She'd get the job, she knew it, this was what she was made for, but she didn't say anything to the other girls as she took the stage and grabbed the pole. It was just a fact. She didn't need to rub it in. Leon would have rubbed it in.

Once the beeping stopped and the music started it was a good beat for her. Slow and thumping, one she could roll her hips to with that little hitch at the end that dragged the attention to whatever part of her was wiggling at the time. She was in fine shape, too, she could get away with doing things that the other girls couldn't. Her body found the balance point and her limbs rolled around her center, putting in mind all sorts of things that made men and women feel hot and flushed.

"Where did you learn that?" the manager asked, when her piece was finished and she came off the stage. Most of the girls were looking at her with some mix of envy and hate. A couple of them, the older ones, seemed philosophical about it.

The manager wasn't flushed or bothered at all, though. He looked at her shrewdly, as though he knew what she was. Roy said that would be a danger. She still didn't think he'd turn her in. She would bring in too much money for him to turn her in.

"School," she shrugged. People learned how to dance at school. It didn't matter what kind of school, not to him, as long as it was some place that didn't mean vats and hospitals.

The manager nodded. "You'll start tomorrow. The gold room, and if you're good, in a couple days we'll move you up to the main stage. Kitty broke her ankle and can't dance for a while, so, we'll see how you do, eh?" He smiled at her in a way that neither Leon nor Roy would have liked, but she just nodded. If he became a problem, she could get rid of him. He wasn't even as tall as she was, and she knew she was stronger. She could take him easy.

"Sounds good," she nodded, and tossed her copper-shined hair.

\---

Roy came to see her dance, once. He'd liked the look of her in the bath with the snake and decided to come watch. He had a table of his own, which wasn't usual but this was the businessman's lunch hour, and they weren't all nose to armpit like they were at night when all the day laborers got off to get off.

He met her afterwards in her dressing room, too. She was on the main stage by now. "What do you think?"

"I think…" he drawled, slow and watching as she undressed and stepped into the shower to wash the dust off. "You should be more careful."

She rolled her eyes, stepped out of the shower and under the hair dryer, feeling the warm air and thinner, softer strands of un-cluttered hair whipping around her face. "You worry too much," she called out to him over the noise. He laughed. She couldn't hear it, but when she peeked through lowered lashes she saw him grinning.

Zhora stepped out again and gave him the stink-eye for laughing. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her close, not that he had to in this tiny space. His white-blond head was almost touching shawls that hung from the ceiling, not even enough room to put her hand between them. "I worry just enough, and I would hate to lose you," he said. That strange pout-smile that he had. _Love me,_ it said. All of his attention focused on her through sensitive lips and strong jaw, blue eyes gone pale green-gray under the gold tinted lights.

She did. It was why she'd followed him out of the colonies and down here.

Her arms tightened around his shoulders, hips rising and hitching forward to lock her legs around his waist at the same time as he picked her up. Wide hands spanning almost her entire ribcage, thumb-tip to last finger-tip. Their lips mashed together and locked as his hands slid around her back and pressed her close, and if anyone opened the door to look in on them neither of them heard it. Nor, probably, would they have cared. She didn't, anyway.

He left a little while after that to go back home and make sure Leon wasn't getting into trouble, and by the time she stepped out for dinner the sidewalk was strangely clear. Rain coming down harder than usual was the likely cause, but she liked the rain. It felt and smelled different here than it had on the colonies. You could chew the rain, it had a flavor, the whole city did. Bright lights cascading over her skin and the ground beneath her feet. Zhora walked down the row of stores looking for something to eat before her next set, laughing. The world was full of new, fun experiences, and Roy would make sure she got to taste them all.

\---

The pavement was slippery, slick with acid rain and dripping chemicals off of signs, water gushing out from broken pipes onto the streets and the combined sweat of thousands of people walking by. She had her raincoat on, not that it mattered. She'd grabbed it to keep people from grabbing her as she ran.

Zhora pounded feet on pavement until she was pretty sure she was lost in the crowd, and then she took a breath. Made her breathing as even as she could before she started elbowing her way through the crowd again. He wasn't supposed to be on payroll anymore, he'd quit. Everyone had said so. Everyone had said all the best had gotten too old, quit or retired. He shouldn't be following her, how the hell was he following her?

How the hell was he _still_ following her? She thought she'd lost him. Maybe Roy had been right. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

No, no, it had been a good idea. It was still a good idea, she just needed to lay low for a little while. Get underground. Let someone else take care of him and Roy would find their maker and everything would be all right again. Their maker would protect them, and she would dance for him, because all men liked that.

She kept running. The bullet punched her in between the shoulder blades, reminding her of Roy's hard fists and strong hits at fighting practice. It was a bullet, had to be, being hit by a gun felt different than being hit by a fist, but both were pleasurable, in a way. Except for the fear. The first time for each was a memory she held tight in her mind, a strong sensation and a sharp heat. And now shards, all over her skin, tickling safety glass through her hair and against her hands and the sides of her legs.

She kept running. Out of reflex, more than anything. The momentum of the bullet and her own legs carried her through, and through, and if she could just get out the other side she could lose him in the crowd again and find Roy to tell him that they were being followed and needed to get out of this city no matter how wonderful it was with all the people and the sensations she drank down greedily like a child having her first legal drink and even if it tasted bitter and thin and not too good she was drinking and it was finally hers after being forbidden for so long and she was almost to the other side, could taste the freedom, and

and

...


End file.
